Fantasy Football Today - 06/22 BONUS EPISODE: Winston Facing a Suspension (Fantasy Football Podcast)
Episode Date: June 22, 2018Obviously Jameis Winston is moving down in the rankings, but is he even worth drafting at this point considering his Week 5 bye? And what do we know about the Ryan Fitzpatrick/Mike Evans combination a...nd what it means for Evans' Fantasy ranking. Adam and Jamey hop on for a bonus episode reacting to the latest news. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports.
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Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath.
Well, we care about you, you listeners out there, here on the Fantasy Football Today podcast.
We didn't want to make you wait an entire weekend to hear our reaction on Jameis Winston's three-game suspension,
which has not been finalized as of right now.
It's Thursday evening.
You're going to hear this on Friday afternoon or a little later.
And we're back with a bonus edition of the Fantasy Football Today podcast.
I'm Adam Azer.
Thanks for listening, everybody.
Please, if you're listening to this and you didn't hear our Thursday show, it got lost in the feed maybe. Dave and I'm Adam Azer. Thanks for listening, everybody. Please, if this is the if you're listening to this and you didn't hear our
Thursday show, it got lost in the feed
maybe. Dave and I recorded on Thursday.
But here's Jamie, working from home,
texted me, wanted to get on the air,
wanted to talk about Jameis Winston, who's facing
a three-game suspension. Thank you
for doing this, Jamie. Appreciate it.
Yeah, of course. I think it's always important that we
react to news when we can.
You are a very dedicated worker, so I figured you'd be available, ready, willing, and you're definitely able.
When you say dedicated worker, you mean boring person with no life, right?
Well, I know you'd be home.
I was home. I just finished my blue apron.
All right, so Jameis Winston facing a three-game suspension
for violating the personal conduct policy.
Again, it's not official, but we will, I guess,
mostly act as if he'll serve a three-game suspension.
Ryan Fitzpatrick is their backup quarterback.
I got an interesting note on what happened when Fitzpatrick played last year
and what it meant for Mike Evans.
But what did you do with Jameis Winston in your rankings?
I dropped him from 13th to 18th.
I still think there's an opportunity here for Winston to help fantasy owners.
When he's back, the problem is that if the suspension is upheld,
he's out until week four.
The Bucs have a bye in week five.
Do you want to carry a backup quarterback who's not going to play for you
until most likely week six?
Well, yeah, you could start him at Chicago in week four.
They were actually sixth best against quarterbacks last year,
which is not necessarily a stat that translates year to year.
But, yeah, that's a good point.
At Chicago in week four and then a bye.
Then at Atlanta, and quite frankly, Jamie, I wouldn't be surprised if Atlanta that's a good point. At Chicago in week four, and then a bye, and then at Atlanta.
And quite frankly, Jamie, I wouldn't be surprised if Atlanta had a pretty good defense, a very good
defense this year. So that means week seven against Cleveland, it might be the first time
you want to use Jameis Winston. Yeah, that's very true. But at least just in terms of how
you manage your roster, that's tricky to say, I'm going to carry a second quarterback. So most likely,
we're going to be talking about him as a waiver wire ad. I would be very surprised
if his ownership percentage is above 60% the way that our leagues are typically run.
You have to think, if you're going to draft him facing a three-game suspension, you have to think
that Jameis Winston could be great this year. And a lot of people do. We just had Mike Tagliere on two episodes ago,
and he had Jameis as one of his breakouts.
We know the stat.
This is one of mine.
Yeah, yeah, right.
And we know the stat, 4,910 yards.
That's what he would have had if you take his games that he finished last year.
But I'll throw this stat at you.
You know, he had about 4,000 yards, 4,000 to 4,100 yards in his other two seasons, 2015 and 2016.
Kirk Cousins went from 4,100 to 4,900 back to 4,100.
So there's certainly no guarantee that Jameis Winston is going to be one of the best in yards per attempt
and yards per game in the NFL again.
And it's just such a deep position.
You also have an improved run game, obviously, with Ronald Jones.
The thing is that when you look at this receiving core,
you have an elite playmaker in Mike Evans.
You have a good field stretcher when he's right in Deshaun Jackson.
Two very competent tight ends in Cameron Brate and O.J. Howard.
And a lot of people, myself included, are excited about Chris Godwin as that third guy.
So it's a great receiving core.
It's just a shame that now you're dealing with this quarterback upheaval for what could be, again, three games.
And we don't know for sure, but yeah, that's the assumption right now.
So Jamie, again, has Winston.
You said 18th you moved him?
Yeah, I had him 13th.
It's really nitpicking when you get to the
15 through 20 range because i think all these guys have so much upside i continue to move eli
manning up as i do more and more research and more writing you know it's uh it's kind of like the uh
the lull makes you reevaluate a lot of different players and so i moved eli up to the top 15 just
you know give you a comparison philip rivers i would take over and matt ryan i would take over
him um i moved him behind jared golf who i'm a little bit concerned about just
because of what he did last year uh and what that offense is but you know winston i think will be in
in the discussion with marcus mariota uh jack prescott tyra taylor mitchell trubisky you know
if you're buying into his upside um you know he's just somebody I don't think you're going to get a lot of love for.
I'm disappointed for a couple of reasons.
In one draft that I've already done that we're playing out, I drafted him as a backup to Patrick Mahomes.
That's okay, but I don't know if I would have made that move with this news.
And the other one is our championship dynasty team that we share, Adam.
Yeah.
Great team.
You spend a lot of time looking at,
I have three quarterbacks now,
which are,
I think a good group,
but Winston was going to be the guy and now it's Winston,
Eli Manning and Mitchell Trubisky.
So hopefully that,
that trio will get the job done as we try to repeat.
Yeah.
You should have some,
some good,
some good stuff there between Trubisky, Eli, and Jameis Winston.
I want to ask you, did you move Mike Evans down in your rankings?
First, though, I need to tell everybody.
We've got a lot of great content on CBS Sports.
First of all, I want to tell everybody why Jamie sounds a little bit different today.
It's because, like I said, we're doing an impromptu show.
He's doing it from home.
Really appreciate the time there.
We just wanted to give you some instant feedback.
But go to the website.
Go to cbssports.com slash fantasy.
Got a ton of football content out now, including a couple of mock drafts that we did.
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Did you move Mike Evans down?
I did not.
I can't really justify even with him losing Winston,
putting him behind Tyreek Hill, Doug Baldwin, T.Y. Hilton just yet.
Maybe Hilton will move ahead of him if Andrew Luck is 100% by training camp.
But, you know, we've talked about this, the drop-off at receiver
from really the elite-level guys, the number one options,
to the number two options.
I still think Evans, I'd probably put him now at the high-end number two options.
You know, I think there's probably a safe eight.
But Evans didn't exactly play poorly with Fitzpatrick
in the time that they were together.
He missed the one game because of the suspension when he hit Marshawn Lattimore in the back in that Saints game,
missed Week 10 against the Jets.
But he had three for 95 and a touchdown in the first game Winston appeared in.
He had an 80-yard game, hit a 90-yard game.
Yeah, he led the team in receiving all three games that he played with Ryan Fitzpatrick.
And one of the games, Jameis Winston started,
but did not have any completions to Mike Evans.
Evans ended up with three catches, 95 yards, and a touchdown in that game.
Jamie mentioned that.
So he led the team in receiving all three games he played with Fitzpatrick. He had 95, 92, 78 yards, one touchdown.
I don't know if you care about this, but Sean Jackson actually did pretty well.
He had 38 yards.
He had 82 yards.
He had 60 yards, but he had one touchdown.
And Fitzpatrick got the tight ends involved too.
O.J. Howard had 52 yards twice.
Cameron Braid had a 76-yard game, 46 yards from Fitzpatrick,
and a touchdown from Fitzpatrick in that game at Arizona.
So I think you could do a lot worse for Tampa Bay as a backup quarterback.
They got a pretty good one, I suppose.
And he went 2-1 in the three starts.
Yeah, that's a good stat.
And they probably won the Arizona game.
The one he came in and played most of it.
So I'll count that as a start for him.
Why not?
We'll have fun with it.
Of course, I don't know if they won, but we'll look that up.
All right, so I think that's basically it.
The only other thing, Jamie, is I looked at some quarterbacks who have good schedules,
weeks one through three, if you want to pair them with Jameis Winston.
It's hard to really say at this point.
You don't know how it's going to translate year to year.
Two of the worst teams against the pass last year were the Texans and the Giants,
and I think both are going to be a lot better this year
just because of health for the Texans and coaching and health for the Giants.
But, you know, you can't just look at what happened last year.
But Ben Roethlisberger at Cleveland week one.
He's not usually good on the road, but he is at Cleveland.
He scored 20 fantasy points in week one at Cleveland last year.
Kansas City at home and at Tampa Bay.
Case Keenum, he's got Seattle in week one.
I don't know if that's a bad matchup anymore.
Seattle, Oakland at Baltimore.
Baltimore actually was great against the quarterbacks
last year. Matthew Stafford I like a lot.
Jets at the Niners and at the Patriots.
Bortles
is at the Giants, Patriots
and Titans. Mahomes
at the Chargers could be tough at Pittsburgh
and then San Francisco. That one's not so great
for Mahomes.
Ryan Tannehill, Tennessee at the Jets and at Oakland.
I don't think you want to draft Ryan Tannehill,
but maybe if you're desperate.
I like this one.
Kirk Cousins, the Niners at the Packers and then Buffalo at home.
Buffalo was very good against quarterbacks.
That's because they were so bad against the run last year.
I don't think it's because their pass defense was really that good.
Eli Manning's bad week one, but he's at Dallas and at Houston.
He's got Jacksonville at Dallas and at Houston.
The Jets quarterback is going to have the Lions on the road,
then the Dolphins, then the Browns.
That's another good one.
Mariota at Miami, Houston, and at Jacksonville.
That's okay.
I don't really know about Arizona this year.
They probably won't be bad, but Alex Smith is at Arizona,
home against the Colts and home against Green Bay.
I know I gave a lot out there.
I think Stafford is the one that really pops to me.
Jets at the Niners at New England for Stafford.
Nice little start there for him.
Yeah, and I will, just one more note in terms of things that are impacted
aside from Winston.
If you were looking at the Saints' DST,
home game against Ryan Fitzpatrick, I think that's very attractive.
Saints obviously have a very good defense, what we saw last year.
And this could even make them that much more, I guess, powerful as a team.
They lost that game at Arizona.
38-33.
I'll blame Winston for it and not Fitzpatrick.
We'll let him off the hook.
All right.
Thank you, Jamie, for hopping on here.
Appreciate it, man.
My pleasure.
Thank you.
Have a great weekend, everybody. And now we'll be back on here. Appreciate it, man. My pleasure. Thank you. Have a great weekend, everybody.
And now we'll be back on Monday.
Bye.